


The Empty Throne

by I_prefer_the_term_antihero



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Angst and Humor, Angst and Tragedy, Backstory, Canon Backstory, Comedy, E20/Ch42 Father Before the Grave, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Hohenheim's Past, Humor, Relationship Study, Songfic, Tragedy, Tragedy/Comedy, Van Hohenheim's Past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-10-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26040589
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_prefer_the_term_antihero/pseuds/I_prefer_the_term_antihero
Summary: It's been a long time since that word died on Ed's lips...but relationships may be the only thing that can come back from the dead. || Exploring Ed and Hohenheim's relationship using the songs "Stumbling in Your Footsteps", "The Alchemist", and "Youth" as prompts.
Relationships: Edward Elric & Van Hohenheim
Comments: 18
Kudos: 25





	1. Living Ghosts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter explores Ed's view of his father more early on in the series, using the song "[Stumbling in Your Footsteps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tiupFhIEa5k)" by Get Scared as a prompt.
> 
> Also, this chapter expands upon Chapter 42/Episode 20 "Father Before the Grave," and includes some lines only from the manga. [Here's](https://read-fullmetalalchemist.com/manga/fullmetal-alchemist-chapitre42/) the link to the manga chapter if you need a refresher, or have never read it in the manga!  
> (I actually highly recommend reading it, because Ed and Hohenheim talk more in it than they do in the anime). 
> 
> Ever since I first read/watched that chapter/episode, while I loved it, I was rather disappointed at how fast things go--how it immediately jumps from the grave conversation to Ed in bed, because I wanted to see Ed and Hohenheim interacting more. And maybe the grave conversation is supposed to take place at sunset, and/or maybe Ed didn't interact with him/went to bed after that...but in the anime the sky is pretty clearly blue, so I feel like there was at least some interaction going on that we missed. So I decided to write what that potentially could have been!
> 
> It would mean a lot to me if you could comment to let me know if you liked this!! Comments really do help give me the motivation to continue writing!! <3

The study door was ajar. Little Ed ran past it without a thought…but as he passed, something in the corner of his eye flickered, and he stopped. 

Something. A fleeting shadow, like hope. And his heart staggered. 

He backtracked to the door, something in his chest bubbling, a word fluttering to his lips:

_“Dad?”_

But it dissipated like smoke; there was nothing but an empty chair, and a few flies buzzing in the empty air. Disappointment tugged at his blushing face, before anger took hold, twisted in his chest, and he marched off. 

That was stupid of him. How could he possibly think _that man_ was back? It had been weeks now. 

“Ed?” His mother popped her head around the corner. “Did you say something?”

“No, nothing. I just…thought I saw something,” he mumbled as he marched up to her. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d seen this ghost. 

Each time the front door creaked open; each time he saw a shadow across the lawn; each time something woke him in the night, or early in the morning, that word would rise in his chest and ripple onto his lips, and all too often he couldn’t help letting it escape. 

And each time Winry came in the door, or a stray dog walked by the porch light, or he found it was just Al coming back from the bathroom… the word would flicker and die. 

The hope that planted that word there slowly unwound, a ball of yarn at the center of his chest getting smaller and smaller; a plant withering and dying. 

The house was full of ghosts such as these.

Over time that thing in his chest that jumped and hammed at each passing noise, and plummeted into his stomach when there was nothing there, became tamer, less excitable. But it didn’t just die… it changed. 

In the fall it became something…instead of bright and warm, bubbling inside him, it was sharp, and burning; a painful heaviness sitting in the center of his chest. 

After all, Icarus felt the warmth of the sun before he sank into the cold waters of despair.

And that word, so eager to flutter to his lips, he trapped in a jar. 

* * *

Trisha felt a tug on her dress as she walked through the garden. She turned to see her son’s golden eyes shimmering up at her.

“Oh, hello Ed!” She turned to him, holding the basket at her side. “What’s going on?”

“Are you picking tomatoes?” he asked like his mind was on other things.

“Yes, I was going to make soup for us! You always loved this soup! Right?”

He scratched his head, frowning, then muttered softly;

“When’s dad coming back?” 

The abruptness of this question seemed to hit Trisha. 

This wasn’t the first time he’d asked this, nor the second, nor the third. Still, each time it hurt her a little more. _She_ understood his reasons…but she knew Ed didn’t. And she’d promised Hohenheim she wouldn’t tell them…not that they could really understand at this age anyways. 

She’d wait for him. But she hoped he’d come back soon, for their sons’ sakes.

Her lips curved into a smile all the same—somehow—as she knelt down in front of him.

“Oh honey.” She set the basket down, and put her hands together. “He’ll be back before you know it!” 

She smiled, yes…but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. 

“It’s been months now.” Ed muttered.

“I know.” She petted his head. “I know its hard. You just gotta be patient Ed. I promise if you just keep waiting a little longer—”

“Yeah but… _how_ long?” 

“I don’t know honey.” The sadness tugged at her words; the sadness she was desperately trying to keep at bay. “But I know he’ll come back.”

He paused, looking at the ground, his expression twisting, like he didn’t want to speak the words festering behind his lips. 

“What is it?” She asked gently.

“Why did he leave?” His voice was soft. “Were…Were we… not good enough for him?” 

“Oh honey.” She put her hand on his cheek. “Have you been carrying that around this whole time? Of course not.” She pulled him into a hug. “You’re perfect. And your dad knew that. You were the _world_ to him. He just...had something he needed to do.”

“What went wrong?” he mumbled into her shirt. “Was it something I said?”

“No, of course not!” She held him tighter. “Nothing went wrong at all!”

He wanted to believe that. He wanted to hold these words like precious jewels.

Once, he could have. Once these words had given Ed hope, made him look forward to tomorrow, be willing to wait. But she’d said them enough by now they were nothing but that; empty, flowery words. 

If they were truly the world to that man, why would he leave his world behind? He’d had it all.

They were meant to be a kingdom, a fortress against any obstacle. But the king had got up and left his throne. 

Adults always throw around such words when they don’t want to tell kids a painful truth, thinking they’re ignorant. Ed thought that was crueler than simply speaking said truth. Because the more they repeated those things…the more the truth behind them bled through the cracks in their smiles. 

The truth that Ed could see behind her smile, the truth that made him begin to cry into her shirt today was that he knew he was never coming back.

* * *

Ed’s footsteps were rough against the floorboards as he walked into Pinako’s house. 

Usually he would give her a pleasant hello, but his irritation was rather boundless at the moment;

“Hey I’m here. Sorry it took so long. Also a stray mutt decided to follow me home.” He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. 

Hohenheim froze, peering at him over his glasses. 

“Edward! You had your brother and I worried sick!” She smacked him with a dish towel. “Next time call us!”

“Sorry.” He scratched the back of his head. “I got dragged off on an…unexpected detour.”

She pursed her lips. “Some top secret military mission no doubt.”

Before he could respond, her eyes landed on Hohenheim and her expression fell. She glanced between them, and her voice was gentler as she spoke;

“I see you found your father.”

“The bastard decided to materialize is more like it.” Ed put his hands on his hips

“I wanted to warn you he was here…But you didn’t exactly give me a chance.”

“You need warning before seeing me?” Hohenheim looked strangely sad at this. 

“Yeah,” Ed threw over his shoulder, “a big blinking sign would have been nice.”

“Well.” Ed didn’t wait for a response before he changed the subject. “I have sand in…places, so I’m going to go take a shower, if that’s alright with you freaks.”

They didn’t have a chance to reply before he rounded the corner.

The floorboards creaked as he marched down the hall, and into the bathroom, shutting the door a little louder than necessary. 

He groaned, kicking the empty trash can—(it went flying across the room, since he used his automail leg)—before pausing and leaning his head back against the door. 

Closing his eyes, he let out a long sigh. Had he been holding his breath ever since he saw that man?

He hadn’t been lying about the sand…but more than anything he just needed some space to breathe. 

The news about Maria Ross, what the Ishvalans said in the Xerxes ruins, the Rockbells…and now _Hohenheim_ showed up? After ten years he picked _now_? Not when they were in Liore, or Central, or even when Al was there too, nooooo. It just _had_ to be in the three seconds he alone was here.

Three seconds…A day. 

…Ten years. 

Was the difference negligible to Hohenheim? 

That was the only explanation he could think of for why he might react the way he did today. Were all adults like that? He hoped he wouldn’t be when he grew up. Did they not realize how the years felt to a kid? Maybe ten years wasn’t much to an adult like him. 

But to someone still growing up? Ten years may as well be a century. Childhood is the only time the years feel long; just a few hours to play is weeks in some fantasy world. Those moments get shorter as each year goes by, like a speeding train, and suddenly you start to see how many seconds you’ve wasted. Kids don’t have that concept. Ed was just starting to understand it himself. 

None of them could ever get those years back. They couldn’t patch the memories up with the other sewn back into the gaps. Those years when they might have played together, ate together, practiced alchemy together…just _been_ together. All that might have been was snuffed out when the door shut. 

And today, _now_ he walked back in like he left yesterday. 

Who did he think he was? 

Ed opened his eyes. 

What was he doing again? Towels. Yes. He should probably get those. 

After cleaning up the spilled trash, and putting the can back, he walked over to the cupboard above the toilet to pull one down—(…the rest fell on top of him in the process—no it _wasn’t_ because he was short). 

When Ed saw Hohenheim at the grave, he’d been sure it was a ghost. It was the right place for one, after all. Even a living one. 

Over the years he’d seen far too many ghosts of Hohenheim to believe the man standing there was anything corporeal. He was too angry to allow him to return at the moment he was _least_ needed. 

After reorganizing the towels and setting his by the shower, he pulled his hair out of the messy braid he’d made, catching his reflection in the mirror as his hair fell across his shoulders. 

_“We have the same look.”_

Ed scowled at the mirror, balling his hand into a fist. 

_That_ ’s all he had to say, after ten years? 

“We do _not_ have the same look.” He muttered to the mirror. 

They may not have the same style…but he couldn’t deny they had the same hair and eyes. 

He was almost granted the mercy of forgetting. Made sense, considering how long it’d been since he’d seen his ugly mug. 

Proceeding to the shower, he turned on the water, the faint hissing filling the room as steam rose, warming the air. 

This wasn’t the first time he wished he had inherited more of his mother’s features. More than once his mom mentioned how he and Al looked like their father. That had made her happy, and once upon a time that was enough. But now that they were alone, he lamented the fact that he had his father’s features instead of hers… he’d much rather people saw her when they looked at him. 

He took off his clothes, throwing them onto the floor and stepping into the hot water. The warmth spread through him, like a cure to the bitter cold piercing his chest. Sighing, he closed his eyes and put his hands on the back of his neck, letting it trickle across his face. 

So long since he’d seen his ugly mug. 

Ten years. It may as well have been a century. 

The last time he’d seen him it was through the wide eyes of a child, looking up at this towering figure with his back turned. Those cold, gold eyes, looking down at him. Saying nothing at all as he left them to grow up on their own. 

He _had_ grown up since then. He’d done and seen things adults couldn’t bear to look at. And he’d stopped seeing Hohenheim through those eyes; those eyes that gazed up hopefully, sure the adults have all the answers, wondering why he did this, assuring himself that man had some logical explanation that he’d come back one day to give them. And they’d forgive him. Some hope he would come back and fix their future. That he wasn’t a bad man. 

Now he knew he wasn’t a saint, nor a good man who had simply gone astray. It was much simpler than that; 

He was just a fool. 

Ed reached over and grabbed the soap. 

That was all. There was no deeper reasoning. No explanation to be had. He was just a fool. Some deadbeat dad who couldn’t even be bothered take care of his sons. He chose to save himself, instead of saving them. Left them to make sense of it all on their own. 

So that’s what he was doing; making sense of it all. And the sense he saw was that he was a selfish bastard, nothing more. 

Their mother had once said that they were the world to that man. 

If that was true, he’d had the world right at his feet…and he’d walked away. He had it all, and he stepped off the planet. He hoped he fell into a black hole. 

Was it so hard for him to stay, and take responsibility for his kids, and own up to that fact that they were his own, despite the fact that he was a fool? Even a fool could try his best. 

Was the look in their eyes so hard to bear? 

Today, he hoped it was. Ed hoped his eyes haunted him as much as Hohenheim’s gaze had himself. He hoped he could still taste them on his tongue those ten years. That he could never truly spit them out. 

That wide-eyed, shimmering gaze of yesterday had become a fire of glass no one could put out, or shatter. 

He knew that no one was going to take care of him. No one was going to comfort him when he cried anymore. The only one who would look after him was himself—(well, and Al too). 

—Yet… the moment he saw him, he was hit with a shrink ray. Those wandering eyes, wondering thoughts— 

— _Dad? I-Is that you? After all this time?_ — 

— _Why did you leave? What are you doing back?_ — 

_—(Please stay)—_

And that resounding desperate plea from long ago he’d done everything to deny, to block out… 

_Please come home again._

_The house was empty. So, unbearably empty. A hollowness that bored into his chest and made a nest there._

_When the thunder rumbled outside, the house shook with it; the wind whispering through the corridors._

_That word had long since died on his lips; he’d long since stopped seeing Hohenheim out of the corner of his eye; his heart had long since stopped jumping at each passing noise._

_Yet, now, when he walked by the kitchen, sometimes he thought he could still smell Mom’s soup. When he strode through the garden he was sure he saw a flutter of her dress. When he lie down to sleep, sometimes he swore he heard the wind whisper “Goodnight,” and felt a kiss on his forehead._

_And though that thing in his heart had hardened, the warden of his lips never pardoned, when he saw a shadow across the lawn or heard a stray noise, the image of a man with golden hair and eyes flared up to his brain._

_It wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. He was never coming back. He forgot about them, left them to rot away, and for that he didn’t deserve the courtesy of these far-fetched wonderings._

_But the house was so empty. And the hollowness burrowed into his chest._

_So that night, after hearing his parents’ voices echoing through his dreaming head. Something in Ed broke._

_He threw off the covers and stood there in his room, breath heavy on his chest._

_The buzzing in his body wouldn’t let him go back to sleep, or lay there doing nothing. Something was vibrating at the frequency of everything he was made of. The resonance animated his legs, carried him through the moaning hallway, down the stairs of that big empty house, and into the yard, where the rain was pouring down._

_He ran, his bare feet getting cut on pebbles and sticks._

_Was he crying or screaming? All he knew was that humming in his body just kept getting louder._

_He tripped on a rock and fell to the ground, his hands smeared in the mud. But he didn’t get up._

_That resonance manifested in his throat. And at last he knew he was screaming._

_It started with wordless sounds rending the air, like he was some wounded animal caught in a trap, until finally it manifested into words;_

_“Where did you go, you bastard?!” He roared. “Why did you leave?! Why did you leave us?! Leave mom?! Were we not enough for you?! Huh?! What did you have to lose?!”_

_His breath cut through his chest in gasps as he sobbed onto the grass, his tears mixing with the rain, the dirt and grime coating his hands and knees._

_The thunder rumbled in reply._

_This house had once been an illustrious kingdom. They made castles out of couch cushions, cathedrals out of books. They were lead by a perfect king and queen whom they would follow to the ends of the earth._

_Until the king packed his things, and left his throne, his riches, his people too. Shut the portcullis, and was never seen again._

_Until the queen lie bleeding on the checkerboard floor._

_“Mom…please…” His voice was barely a drip of rain now. “Please come back, Mom.”_

_The kingdom lie in ruins, a crumbling echo of what it once was._

_Their kingdom had lost its king, and now its queen too. Two lonely knights wandered the board alone. Who was left to lead?_

_The word was less than a breath:_

_“Dad…Dad please…”_

_Tears streaming down his face he sat up and yelled to the grey, grumbling air, the reverberation in his lungs louder than that thunder, “PLEASE COME HOME AGAIN!”_

_He fell back down, breathing heavily, shivering, finally realizing just how cold he was._

_“I promise to be good.” He murmured. “Let us show you we’re good enough for you.”_

_The sentences ran out, and finally into the dirt there was only word breathed over and over:_

_“Dad…Dad…Dad…”_

_Until, at last, that word was gone from his lips._

He put the soap back and moved on to the shampoo. 

The moment he saw Hohenheim before that grave…

He felt so small. 

And he _hated_ feeling small. 

Hohenheim’s eyes hadn’t changed one bit. He may as well have walked straight back through the door that day.

That look from when he left was a scar across his mind, one that still burned when the nights were long enough, and the days were hard enough. He almost searched his body for the mark.

Even though the anger was sizzling on his tongue, bolstering him up, making him feel superior, he couldn’t help but feel so tiny. 

_“You were hiding the memory.”_

Said so casually, reading him like a book when he’d looked at less than a page. He wanted more than anything for him to be wrong. 

—(But when your house is full of ghosts, the only way to keep them from following you…is to burn it down)— 

No _How have you been, Edward?_ No _I’m sorry I left, Edward_. Not even a simple explanation or apology. Were those two little words so hard to say? 

Ed felt so sick to his stomach. 

He leaned forward, closing his eyes, resting his automail arm on the wall, the water draining through his hair. 

He wanted to wash it all away, this day, the scent off his skin…erase the connections. But no matter how hard he scrubbed, the traces wouldn’t come off. 

After turning off the water, he reached out from the curtain to grab the towel, ruffling his hair with it, drying off and putting his clothes back on, carrying his jacket over his shoulder. 

As he passed by, the mirror taunted him;

_You’ll never be free from him._

When he reached the door he hesitated, his fingers flickering before the doorknob. He bit his lip, wondering if he should go out there at all. 

He didn’t want to see that man, to talk to him.

It’d been so long. 

The look on his face as he left was burned into his mind. When he saw him again, before that grave, for a moment that memory was all he could see. How could that tape, so long stuck in one place, suddenly be moving again? Talking and walking like it wasn’t defective for ten years?

What could he possibly say to him? What should he say to him? What did he _want_ to say to him?

_Nothing_. Said the wrath that hadn’t been put out by the water. 

_Everything._ Said the little boy in the rain. 

He took a deep breath before venturing into the hall, and a long exhale before entering the kitchen. 

Pinako was standing at the sink in an apron, stirring something, while Hohenheim sat at the table cleaning his glasses—(ya know, not helping her, like the bastard he was).

Ed threw his jacket on the back of a chair, determinedly not looking at Hohenheim, and walking up to Pinako. 

“Can I help you with anything, Granny?” 

“Sure. Keep stirring this for me.” She pointed to the pan of the stove, then added, “You should feel right at home.”

Ed looked into the pan to see it was full of bean sprouts. 

“WHADDYA TRYING TO SAY, BEAN SPROUT LADY?!”

“I MEANT WHAT I SAID, YA MIDGET!”

The house soon bounced with their indiscernible shouting match. 

After they’d exhausted the topic, Ed stirred bitterly, and leaned over, whispering out of the corner of his mouth, 

“So do _you_ have any idea what the hell he’s doing back?” 

“Beats me.” She muttered. “I’ve got the same information as you, kid; he just decided to show up one day.”

A few sprouts fell on the counter and sizzled as he gave him the stink eye over his shoulder. 

“Who does he think he is?” he grumbled, “Showing up without so much as a warning...”

“You’re one to talk.”

“Wja—That’s different!”

“Well…Like it or not he is your father, Ed. Maybe you oughtta trying talking to him.”

“What, you mean like before he decides to jump ship again?”

“I _can_ hear you, you know.” Hohenheim’s level voice broke through. 

“Yeah well— _good_.” Ed grunted and stirred more vigorously, but didn’t continue the topic.

After a moment’s silence, Den clicked over to them and lay at Ed’s feet, whining slightly. 

“Hey, buddy.” He switched stirring hands to pet him. “Is something wrong?”

“…Animals have never much liked me.” Hohenheim answered softly. 

Ed smirked, scratching Dug behind the ears. “Good boy.”

“Alright, that should be enough, thank you.” Pinako took over. “Sit down, Ed. Supper’s just about ready.”

“Oh.” He backed up, remembering that staying for dinner entailed actually conversing with that man. “Well, on second though I…I’m actually not that hungry.”—(which wasn’t a lie).

Pinako looked at him over her glasses like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Sit. Down.” She enunciated.

Ed surveyed the room and sat in the spare chair against the wall, facing away, putting his hand on his chin. 

After a moment Pinako grabbed the back of the chair and dragged him into the spot opposite Hohenheim. 

“You’re strong for an old lady!” 

“You’re weak for a young man.”

“Wh— _I’m plenty strong_!” 

“Maybe if you drank more milk.” She put a glass of it in front of his plate. “You’d be stronger.”

“So we meet again ya bastard.” Ed scowled.

Hohenheim looked like he was about to speak when Pinako clarified, sitting beside him,

“He’s talking to the milk.”

“Ah!” His tone shifted. “It appears you and I have something else in common!”

Ed looked between the two like he was about to start a self destruct sequence.

He grabbed the milk and tried to chug it, but quickly failed and ended up spitting it out. 

“ _Nope._ ” He coughed, milk dribbling down his chin. “Still can’t do it.”

Ed thought he saw Hohenheim’s mouth quirk up slightly, but it was quickly overshadowed by the realization that he was staring at him. Not in a _you’re-talking-so-I-should-look-at-you_ way, but a _ah-yes-a-test-subject_ kind of way. 

“Your eyes stuck, old man?”

Rather than apologizing, or stopping—(like a normal person)—he adjusted his glasses to get a _better_ lock on. “This is the first time I’ve gotten a good look at your automail.”

Ed looked at his own arm, realizing there was an unfortunate side effect to taking his jacket off. He looked back and forth from him to Pinako, as if she’d rescue him.

He’d never felt embarrassed about his automail before—actually, it was pretty badass, if he said so himself. But Hohenheim’s scrutinizing continued to be that shrink ray— _why?_ He didn’t _care_ what he thought…

“Pretty nice, handiwork, huh?” Pinako jabbed him with her elbow.

“Yes, expert craftsmanship.” Hohenheim responded absentmindedly.

“Wouldja quit examining me!”

Hohenheim finally broke his lock, resuming eating. “Pinako said it was your leg too.”

“What, you want a fashion show?” He spoke through his food. 

“No, no that’s fine.” He said like it was a genuine offer. He took a bite of food before continuing. “So your leg was taken when you tried to transmute your mother, and your arm when you transmuted your brother’s soul into one of my suits of armor, yes?”

Ed swallowed roughly, turning to Pinako. “Did you tell him _everything?!_ ” 

“Well…He _does_ have a right to know.”

“Since when?! He doesn’t have a right to _anything_ when _walked out on us!_ ”

“How old were you?” Hohenheim plowed on like he couldn’t hear them.

“ _Eleven_.” He answered through gritted teeth.

“That’s rather impressive. You were able to bind a soul at just eleven? There’s not many who could do that at thirty.”

It was the first time someone said that that he didn’t think sounded impressed at all.

“How _is_ your brother doing? I would have liked to have seen him.”

“As well as he _can_ be without a body.” He muttered through his food again. He couldn’t really taste anything.

Hohenheim paused before asking softly;

“…Why did you do it Edward?”

Ed nearly choked, jerking his head up, his eyed widening. Was he really asking him _this, now_? 

“Why do you _think?!_ ” He stabbed his food without intention of bringing it to his mouth.

“Didn’t you know the risks?”

“We didn’t _care_!” His voice rose, and he stood up, his chair groaning against the floor. “It’s not like we had anyone here to—oh I don’t know— _give us a reason not to_!” He paused, then said in a normal volume. “No offense, Granny.” 

Hohenheim said nothing. Even though Ed was standing over him, as his glasses shimmered in the light, he still felt as though he was being looked down upon.

That look, that look from when he left, never leaving his face, that look that made him want to punch him—(he would have, if Pinako wasn’t there)—

“I’m going to bed.” He grunted quietly, turning around.

“But you’ve barely touched your food...” Pinako pointed out gently.

“I’ve lost my appetite!” 

Ed just caught the words “He’s rather hotheaded, isn’t he?” before he slammed the bedroom door.

It was then he noticed how almost every part of his body was tense.

He leaned back against the door, this time sinking all the way to the floor, putting his hands on his face, digging his fingers in his hair, the tenseness translating to trembling. 

One conversation. 

One moment. 

Ten years. 

Once upon a time he waited weeks for him to come back. Once upon a time, he wanted more than anything to just _talk_ to him—he’d take a mere moment. To talk about something, _anything_. 

Now that he was back, he could barely stand to be in the same room with him. 

The buzzing in his body made him want to run out into the fields and scream again, to punch him over and over until he was beaten bloody. But this time he remained in place, a creature frozen in ice, trying to break out, shaking in his crystal prison. 

Now their kingdom had become more than just a ruin, or an echo of itself…it was a bone yard.

Ed said he wanted to go to bed, and he did, but apparently that translated to ‘lay awake in bed for hours.’

He didn’t know how many had transpired when Hohenheim came in. Ed didn’t directly see him, but he knew it was him. For one thing, Pinako would never be so creepy. He didn’t even do or say anything, he just came, and left. Pervert. 

…And the worst part of this day wasn’t seeing him again, it wasn’t the anger broiling in his gut…

It was that as he sat up in bed, staring at the door…for the first time in close to ten years he could taste the putrefied remains of that word on his lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that shower scene wasn't weird/awkward...it wasn't supposed to be. I actually got the idea because I was like "why isn't Ed's hair wavy when he takes it out of the braid?" and I was like "hmm...maybe he's a night showerer??" And then I thought that actually worked quite well for this specific instance, because I do feel like he'd need space to breathe.
> 
> Also, I wanted to write Hohenheim as a little more reactive/nice...but he's pretty cold in that specific episode/chapter, so I decided to write him that way here too. Well, more than anything Ed _views_ him as being cold, (even though I don't think that's Hohenheim's intention), so I was trying to capture that.
> 
> I was really excited to be able to use this song (and "The Alchemist," but we'll get to that later) for a fic, because I fell in love with it recently and really wanted to use it for something, but its so specific I didn't feel like it fit any of the characters I wanted to write about at the time. Then I started rewatching FMAB + rereading the manga and I had my answer XD
> 
> Good _gosh_ it feels good to get back into this fandom. I hadn't realized how much I missed these characters until I almost started crying just seeing them again.
> 
> The first time I watched/read this series I was going through a rough time in my life, and consequently having trouble writing. I wanted to write fics for it (I even started a Christmas one for a thing my friends and I were doing, but never finished it...I'm hoping to maybe come back to it this year) but I just...couldn't. I'm really happy I was able to write for it this time around. I absolutely _adore_ these characters. 
> 
> As always, I would absolutely _love_ to write more about this fandom, so feel free to give me FMAB prompts!! You can drop them in the comments below, but it's easiest if you put them in my [ask box on tumblr](https://antihero-writings.tumblr.com/ask)!
> 
> And, as I said, I would really appreciate if you could leave a comment!! <3


	2. Dying Angels

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for taking so long with this one!! Hohenheim proved very difficult to write for...  
> I'm kind of a Goldilocks fic writer--if I have too much canon information I don't feel the need to write anything, if I have too little information I don't have anything to use to form ideas...Hohenheim's past airs rather heavily on the too-little-info side of things, so it was a bit tough.  
> I hope you like what I ended up coming up with though!! And do let me know if there are any inaccuracies!!
> 
> This chapter is written for the songs "[The Alchemist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmcCS6B8XgE)" by Nathan Wagner, and "[Youth](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tmir2xweAfg)" by Daughter (with a little of Stumbling in Your Footsteps sprinkled in there from the last chapter). I highly recommend listening to them before reading!!  
> I was super happy I could use The Alchemist here because it's one of my favorite-ever songs that I've wanted to use as a fic prompt for forever, and I thought it was pretty perfect for Hohenheim, right down to the title!!  
> It didn't work super well for the parts with Trisha though, so I thought I ought to use another song. I know Youth is so overused in AMVs and stuff, but hey, I still really like the song, and thought it worked well!!  
> (Also, I didn't use it, but many of the lines in the verses of "Paralyzed" by Against the Current actually works surprisingly well for him/this chapter, and I'm kind of mad I didn't realize that sooner XD Maybe I can sprinkle it in to Ch3, or edit it in here later). 
> 
> FYI There is reference to a scene from Ch40 from the manga in here that I don't remember being in the anime!!
> 
> If you enjoyed this, if you could leave me a comment I'd really _really_ appreciate it!!

Van Hohenheim walked the streets of Xerxes for two days before he gave up believing that there was someone still alive out there. That there was hope. That he was just trapped in the most feral breed of nightmare.  
  
Now he wandered into his home, though it didn’t feel like his own, rather just some place to rest his feet. An empty shell.  
  
They’d all died. So why did _he_ feel like the corpse?  
  
_“How?! How could you do this?! I thought you were going to make the_ King _immortal, not_ me _!”  
  
“Oh? But what do I care for a nameless king who will be dead in but a few years? It’s you who gave me life. How could I allow you to be sacrificed for his avarice?”  
  
“How could you allow_ me _to be sacrificed?! What about the people?!” He threw his hand behind him, gesturing to the empty city. “What about my_ friends _?!”  
  
“Didn’t I teach you of equivalent exchange? Immortality isn’t bought on the cheap.”  
  
“They’re all _dead _?!_ That _’s your price?! Everyone I ever loved?!”  
  
“Not dead just…” He pondered the right word. “redistributed. To be perfectly frank, I thought you’d be more appreciative of my gift.”_

_“Gift?! Who in their right mind thinks_ this _is a gift?!”_

_“Doesn’t everyone want immortality?”  
  
“Not at the cost of an entire kingdom!”_

_“Interesting…But now that you have it, free of blame, is it really so bad? You have everything you could ever want. Why, you could walk into the palace right now and take all the king’s treasures. No one would stop you.” He chuckled like this was all a grand joke—(he hoped it was). “Technically you’re the only heir left. …Unless of course you’d like to battle_ me _for it.”  
  
Hohenhheim held his head in his hands. No, too much was happening at once. Everything and nothing at all. This wasn’t possible. His friends, the entire kingdom, it couldn’t just be _gone _. There were cosmic rules about this, surely. Surely this couldn’t happen. The gods wouldn’t hit reset any second now._  
  
Hohenheim leaned back against the door. …He didn’t really want to keep going, but, then again, he wasn’t sure this body would let him die.  
  
There was supposed to be a bazaar happening that weekend. He would have liked to go to it. 

He had that book he borrowed from Meiyo. Van himself had taught him to read, so long ago. He would have liked to give it back, to discuss it with him.   
  
He still had to ask Rhinemile if his son was feeling better...well, he surely wasn’t _now_...

— _(Oh, god, not the children)_ —  
  
He wanted to apologize to Willard for his rather rude behavior the other day. He was in a hurry but, well, it still wasn’t excusable.  
  
And there was that girl down the street he’d always wanted to ask if she’d like to get dinner together some time. The one with flowers in her hair.   
  
He sank to the floor.   
  
He’d never get to do any of that now. Couldn’t rewrite the past few days with them filled in the gaps. Tomorrow, so much of life, snuffed out like all the promises of a better future, their lives pinched out like a candle.  
  
Though they’d all died, he was the shade, wandering the streets of a manufactured hell. A vessel for all these wandering ghosts of everyone else.  
  
He’d believed in god once. He wasn’t sure he did anymore.   
  
They’d all died…so why could he still hear them? If he sat still long enough he could hear his friends’ dying cries, their pleas for mercy, as if his memories, like ghouls, decided to reanimate themselves. An eternal echo of their deaths. Dead…yet not dead. Their souls ensnared before they could reach the light at the end of the tunnel, trapped forever in this pitch black passage, bracing themselves for the end, which never came. Their voices, their emotions, ocean waves in a sea of bloody despair, and if he wasn’t careful, surely his own soul would drown in that sea of faces.   
  
The more he tried to block them out, the louder they became.   
  
Was this real? Or was he just insane, sitting in his house, and these voices were the calls of everyone trying to save him?   
  
He pleaded with a nonexistent god for insanity.  
  
The flashes still lingered across his brain; all the golden light turning to a sinister, haunted violet, those black hands still waving before his eyes, clawing at his sight, that eye still tasting his soul, and the blank Truth...  
  
He was so cold.   
  
His body, full of souls…cold as death. A walking gilded corpse; all that was left of his illustrious kingdom. The last survivor of a grand disaster…the unwitting accomplice of said disaster.  
  
Why hadn’t he realized it sooner?  
  
His kingdom had become a bone yard overnight. He wondered if future historians would come across the skeletons of his friends and the standing ruins, and wonder what could have possibly killed a flourishing kingdom in one night. 

Was that all they'd be? A question to history? Not a living, breathing, bleeding people? Would their blood, their legacy, be lost to the world? 

The voices clung to him, begging for a mercy he was incapable of granting any of them, like he was a cliff, one they were at risk of plummeting down. Like he was the single branch keeping them all tethered to life.

Could they not hear him snapping at the seams?

The voices were so close. He hated how close they were. Like a bug on his back, but worse, a thousand bugs crawling on his brain, and they weren’t bugs at all…they were _people_. They were his _friends_. Everyone he once knew, and plenty of people he never met, swarming his thoughts every moment.   
  
It’s sickening to have something crawling in the corners of your mind.  
  
It’d been two days, but it already felt like a century. He wasn’t sure how much of this he could take.   
  
But he would have to take it.   
  
The Philosopher’s stone. He’d read about it in his master’s books, the Homunculus told him about it. At the time it had seemed like the best of dreams; the ability to bypass equivalent exchange, to turn lead into gold… maybe even bring back the dead? 

Not them though. He knew their souls were too lost to return home.

Now he knew what nightmares were made of; the best of dreams. That the worst thing humanity can get is three omnipotent, irrevocable wishes.

He’d walked around enough to know by now, he had the whole kingdom to himself. The Homunculus was right. He could march into the palace, pick up the jewels, sit on the throne. He had it all.  
  
If only he didn’t feel so damn lonely.  
  
He sat, and he thought, and he thought… and he thought. For there was nothing left to do but sit and think, and be swallowed by the quagmire of his own thoughts. Turned inside out. If only he could talk to someone, anyone. A fight with a neighbor would have been relief.  
  
Was this what war felt like?   
  
The silence was the worst part. Just how quiet the kingdom became in a single day. The shops devoid of customers, stoves left on, potters wheels still spinning, the streets empty; no kids playing in the.  
  
The worst part. The silence…and the noise inside his head.  
  
He held that infected head in his hands and, knowing the very worst nightmares are real finally allowed himself to weep. 

* * *

The first time he died was from thirst, the second from starvation. Traveling the desert isn’t a riskless business you know. The third from that weird plant he thought was safe to eat (spoiler, it wasn’t). The fourth from exhaustion, the fifth from heat stroke. Each time he died he felt the weight of their souls lessen, become a little less active.   
  
The sixth was at his own hands.  
  
He wished he could grant them all mercy. It wasn’t long before he tried to end the suffering of all parties involved. The seventh and eighth were too.  
  
He’d lost track of how many times he died by the time he came across a little mining town in the dunes, full of poor people, whose leader was bleeding their pockets dry.  
  
What was it that drove him to help them? Was it sympathy? Pity? Some sort of hero complex?   
  
There was a little girl in rags. He pulled a golden coin from behind her ear, so she and her family would be able to eat that night.   
  
Next thing he knew the town was after him with pitchforks, wanting to know his secrets…willing to carve him up to search for them inside.  
  
He never wanted to cause them any pain. He still believed there was good in them, that this didn’t have to end in blood.  
  
They tore him to pieces.  
  
They were just a little misled, it was his mistake for dangling treasures before their hungry eyes.   
  
There was a general goodness to people. He still believed in it.  
  
And he was right about some of them. Some were kind, there were plenty who appreciated his alchemy, who genuinely wanted to learn, who were grateful to him.  
  
But it was probably around the seventh—or was it the seventeenth?—time he was killed for the crime of helping that he didn’t trust people so much.  
  
They say compassion is weakness, and when he found it was so easy to help…so easy to die for it, he started to believe them. It became more difficult to have compassion when there was such a high price.   
  
He could have created a palace out of nothing. He could have sat on a throne of glass in a kingdom of gold and disbelief. Walled himself away in a tabernacle to ungod beneath the ground. Never dying. Never living.   
  
But he didn’t. He was too weak. Too kind. Too restless. So he continued to walk the world, without a home, hope, or a single fiend to call his own. A golden wanderer in a world of lead.  
  
They’re right when they say history repeats itself.   
  
He wished someone would just reset the needle. The gods should do it any second now.  
  
Another day, another war.   
  
For Hohehnheim, really, though he’d lived through many wars—(best have the immortal fight, yes?)—there was only one war: himself, and the world.   
  
Trying to help, to save, people is much more war than it is peace.  
  
Far too many people desire immortality. Far too few know what it really signifies…what it costs. Every time he heard another foolish mortal bragging of the path to immortality he longed to wrap his hands around them, and shake them to sense. But he didn’t. He let them follow their misguided ways, for their boasts were but empty air. They didn’t know what it cost, and surely never would. They’d be granted the mercy of death in the end, and Hohenheim would stand before their corpses, a heart full of envy.  
  
It’s cruel to desire sickness in front of a sick man. Immortality was but a disease, and he longed for a cure. 

He grew used to it. To the dull repetition, and the petty goals, and the scorn, and the screaming.  
  
Every day he woke up to the sound screaming within his own head. Ever those flashing lights of yesterday. Every day he fell asleep to the lullaby of cries for mercy. That endless black and red sea. He tried to row through it, but each new wave sent him tumbling to nothingness. Nothing, and everything; every emotion they ever felt.  
  
He learned to block them out so he could hear his own thoughts. He learned to listen to them, so he could know they were people, once. Hard to do in tandem.   
  
He tried to remember that they were all people once, and were still, despite the fact that there were little more than cries for mercy left on on the stove.  
  
He tried to treat them as people even so. He tried to get them to sit down so he could talk to them. Tried to discern individual waves from the sea. Tried to urge them to speak of more than just pain. To speak of life, and dreams, and who they once were.   
  
They were the only good part in all this.   
  
It wasn’t a happy life, but he got used to it all…until he met her.   
  
Was it selfish of him to want something for himself? 

* * *

It’d been ten years. Ten years since he’d seen Trisha. Ten years since he’d seen Edward and Alphonse.   
  
It went by like days to Hohenheim. Sometimes he forgot that a few years is a very long time to people who still feel the sting of the clock. 

And children feel it most of all.  
  
What had happened in those ten ticks? Were they happy years? How would they have changed? Would Trisha scold him for taking so long? And Edward and Alphonse, well, they’d be teenagers now.  
  
What kind of people had they become?  
  
Would they take after him or Trisha? He hoped it was the latter.   
  
Excitement and nervousness together flowed through him—though would could never tell by looking at his stoic figure. 

He walked up the hill. When he looked off in the distance to where his house was...he couldn’t see it.

He couldn’t have misplaced it, could he?

As he advanced the nervousness took precedence over the excitement.

Trisha said she’d wait for him...they couldn’t have moved, right? 

As he got closer the tree came into view, the one he tied a swing to before he left...except it wasn’t a flourishing oak as he knew it; it was barren of leaves, the top half of it painted black, its branches like a claw tracing the sky, still as death. 

Horror twisted in his gut, his expression pulling taut. He pushed his glasses up on his nose and continued onward at a level pace. 

When he arrived he fell to his knees.   
  
His home, the place he loved, the place the golden wanderer had finally settled down...was a pile of charcoal. 

How was this possible? 

The excitement became a twisting, writhing, questioning thing.  
  
He would have said some horrible disaster befell the neighborhood… if the other houses weren’t standing tall.   
  
Was it some accident? Where was Trisha? Where were Edward and Alphonse? Were they okay? Why hadn’t it been rebuilt?  
  
He turned to the house next door, like it was a sanctuary. The Rockbells. His last hope; there was Pinako at least. Hopefully she’d still be there, and could explain.   
  
Slowly, trembling slightly, he picked up his suitcase, the handle digging into his palm, and stood up, marching to her door. When he raised his hand to knock his breath caught in his throat.

Maybe he shouldn’t knock at all. Maybe he should just leave, spare everyone the pain. 

Maybe they didn’t want him here after all.

An old lady opened the door. The sight was like time slapping him in the face. He hadn’t realized quite how long it’d been till he saw how the years lined her face, like a well read book.   
  
“Pinako…” He spoke, time catching in his throat. “I seem to have lost my house.” 

* * *

They built a country out of nothing. It was incredible to be there when a nation was being delivered; it wasn’t in a hospital or a house, with blood and screaming, as it is with children, but in these empty fields, these barren sands, and was much softer. From their forests and fields arose houses and farms, and from the stones arose governments and laws.   
  
And in this nation there was born a girl. Just an ordinary girl. He’d met many like her.   
  
…He was much too old for her.  
  
But she looked at him, and she asked him to dance…and he felt young, and like he hadn’t been wandering for centuries.  
  
Why? Why would she pursue him when he was too old, too cold, too empty? What did she see in him?  
  
He couldn’t let himself get close to her. Because, after all, she was human, and therefore going to die some day…And he wasn’t going to die, and he wasn’t even quite sure he was human anymore either.   
  
She told him she wanted to be with him, even so. Even though he was like an old god, cracked and put together out of the souls of his people, and he wasn’t quite sure if he was allowed to be human.   
  
She told him humanity was more than he knew. Stronger than he realized. It was only because they were weak that they were strong. That they were more than just an amalgamation of mistakes. That they could change. And that the knowledge that they were going to die was what made the whole not-dying part worth it all.  
  
Trisha Elric was unlike those he’d met before.   
  
They didn’t get married. He didn’t want to chain her to him. But they decided to start a life together in a quaint town in the middle of nowhere. 

There he could hear the sound of birds chirping, and the wind rustling through the trees.

The wandering god, the golden corpse, rested his feet for the first time in a few centuries. 

Family. The word once meant the world. He wanted nothing more than to start one. To meet a girl, to have children with her. Long ago he told the homunculus that’s what gave life meaning. 

Now he wasn’t sure his life was allowed to have meaning.   
  
So when she told him she was pregnant...that slave boy staring at the sunset, thinking he had a bright, short future, held her in his arms and twirled her around him. All the while the golden wanderer’s heart grew weary, and scared.

Was this really okay? Was a thing like him really allowed to sit down while? How would it work with him the way he was, with bullet holes in his heart and all these voices in his head? Could he possibly be a father, have a family, after all?  
  
He liked kids perfectly well…he just wasn’t sure about _his_ kids.  
  
Would his affliction be passed on to this unsuspecting child? Would he hear voices from the moment he came into this world, unaware there were people out there without voices in their heads? Would they keep him trapped in a bottle desiring freedom from his own head?

And if the child was normal…how could Hohenheim be a father in his condition? How could he speak comforting words when his head was full of unrest? How could his child love a monster?  
  
They named him Edward, because they wanted him to be rich in spirit, and protect the hopeless. He kicked in her tummy a lot, and Trisha told him that surely meant he’d be a fighter after all.  
  
When Edward was born he cried. Frequently, and loudly. Hohenheim protested much himself when Trisha handed him to him, but Edward wrapped his tiny grip tight around his finger, and while his golden eyes were soft and unsure, there was fire there. And, as he calmed down in his arms, Hohenheim smiled, and cried, and was pretty sure he’d melted.

And the voices said _He’s beautiful._  
  
Edward inherited the same golden hair and eyes that belonged to a people long gone, and Hohenheim was glad their blood ran through his veins, that the legacy of a people snuffed out, who should have had generations more, existed at least in him and his son.

And they were happy. And he thought he might stay a while.   
  
When she told him she was pregnant the second time, the slave boy jumped for joy, and the butterflies in the wanderer’s stomach turned to bats.  
  
Trisha picked Ed up and asked if he wanted a brother. He couldn’t talk at the time, but he made a gurgling sound they thought that translated to _“Only if I’m still your favorite.”_  
  
And Hohenheim tried to hold on to that. This was for Edward. Not for himself. This was for Trisha. And Ed turned out well enough. 

…No, he turned out better than “well enough.”  
  
This one was much gentler; less tummy kicking, and when he came out he didn’t cry so much.  
  
They named him Alphonse, because they wanted him to be noble, and prepared for anything.

The four of them were joy incarnate.

And the voices said _It’s okay. You can have this._

So he tried to listen to them.

He wanted to spend every moment with them, every minute he could, and some moments he didn’t have to spare.

But the more he did, the more a darkness crept in.  
  
How could they love a silhouette? They’d surely just forget him…and in a century or two, they’d be taste on his tongue he could never spit out.  
  
Hohenheim grew used to immortality.   
  
But when he looked into those lost, golden eyes he wanted to bleed. He wanted to age, and feel the aches and pains of it. 

He wanted to die.   
  
For the living, death is ever approaching. For the gilded shades death is not easy to find.

He wanted to live, for them. He wanted to die, for them.

But he couldn’t find the cure sitting still.

* * *

The glass previously in Hohenheim’s hand was in pieces on the floor, but he barely heard it shatter, the echoes of Pinako’s words the only thing in his head now. 

No. No this couldn’t be. Surely the gods would hit that reset button. Come on, any day now. 

Trisha couldn’t be dead. 

The woman he loved, decided to settle down, start a family with, she couldn’t be _dead_. No, that wasn’t possible. 

Pinako grimaced, adjusting her glasses.

“I’m afraid there’s more.” She took a drag from her pipe. “I wish I knew what they were planning, I would have tried to stop it... Edward and Alphonse...they attempted to bring her back.”

His eyes widened, his breath catching in his throat.

“They attempted human transmutation?” he breathed. The words were coarse as sandpaper in the air. “You’re…sure?”  
  
“Quite sure.”  
  
He sat down; the weight of his own body, his own thoughts, too much to bear.  
  
For far too long, the thought of seeing Trisha and his sons again had kept him going, kept him sane when he preferred to go crazy.

Coming home to find Trisha was gone, despite their promise to each other, that the last he would ever see of her was her standing at the door saying she’d wait for him. The woman he loved, the ordinary one, who told him people were more, the one he wanted to spend his life—as much of it as he could—with, the one who’d tethered the golden wanderer...he’d never, in all his millennia, get to see again.   
  
And Edward and Alphonse had become accomplished alchemists…but they had had more of a chance to grieve, and that grief, sitting alone in the dark, became an animate beast. In their despair they had tried to bring her back…and weren’t entirely whole anymore because of it. They had seen the immaculate truth, and it tore them apart for the crime of loving their mother.   
  
How could he possibly face them? 

* * *

He saw the circle. The Homunculus drew a circle on the world as a line to know where to cut and make it bleed.  
  
The images of the past redoubled, the voices coming to a crescendo, telling him together they could spare this world from their fate.   
  
He had to stop it this time.   
  
Last time he stood by, ignorant. He wouldn’t now. He was determined. There was no other choice.  
  
And the price of saving this world, his family…was losing his precious years with them.

Equivalent exchange after all.   
  
He had to destroy the middle for the sake of the finish line. 

He told Trisha he didn’t even want to say goodbye. He couldn’t bear to see their faces. If he did...he just might stay. 

When he stood at the door, and she handed him his coat, and they came of their own accord, he knew he was right.

Those golden eyes, those beautiful eyes he adored so much...seared him like a brand. In later years he would be certain they scarred him. He saw them and though the boys said nothing, blissfully ignorant of what was truly happening, everything in him—and was this really him, or the voices still?—pleaded:

_Stay._  
  
But he left anyway.

He had a world to save, after all.  
  
He stood on the hill overlooking Resembool, staring back at his house, the shadows draping across the place where he spent his better years—where he heard the crickets, and the frogs, and the birds, and the wind, and his wife’s lullabies, and his sons’ laughter—forsaking the quaint town, his family, his life for the sake of the sea of faces, for the sake of the cure. 

“I’ll be back before you know it, Trisha. Just wait for me.”  
  
They were the lucky ones. They got to breathe instead of heaving through corrupted lungs. He wanted to breathe too, that’s why he had to leave, after all.  
  
The world was so empty. An emptiness that bored into his chest and made a nest there.  
  
Long ago the Homunculus had wanted to leave his flask. He swallowed the pieces of Xerxes; the pieces of the world he once called home, now nothing more than evidence to be disposed of.   
  
Now the Homunculus wanted to surpass god; cast a fishing line to bring god down and swallow him. To raise himself above all the spheres and look down upon them.   
  
He wanted to create a tower high enough to reach heaven. A door that could open the stars.  
  
He created a mark that no one could miss…except everyone standing on it.  
  
And, with a body of his own—or something close enough, surrounded by people: by another country, by all the souls inside him, the Homunculus still sat alone in a jar. 

* * *

He visited Trisha’s grave, if nothing else, to get proof that she actually was there. That she couldn’t be touched, kissed, hugged, spoken to, or otherwise loved.   
  
If he had stayed…could he have saved her? Could he have kept his son’s from being torn apart in attempts to rewrite the past? 

Now she was just a name on a stone. He stood there, not entirely believing it, not entirely sure where to go from here. 

Back to wandering, I suppose.  
  
He wasn’t expecting—  
  
When he saw that boy again, the boy from the doorway, the one with the sad, fiery golden eyes—the eyes that belonged to the sea of faces—he wasn’t a boy anymore. He was a teenager, and he wore grief like a medal, and Hohenheim knew there was real metal beneath those flashy clothes. There was fire in those eyes, still, but now it was fierce enough with a single look his gaze threated to scorch away his resolve.  
  
That look. The same look from when he left all those years ago. That look that he couldn’t bear.   
  
Edward was angry. He had every right to be…But the gilded sadness behind that anger was what he couldn’t bear. 

Because it reminded him too much of himself.  
  
_No, I had to do this, I had to stop him, don’t look at me like that._  
  
From the bitterness in his words, it became clear he was more than just a stranger in Edward’s eyes.  
  
As they spoke, Hohenheim tried to look for any similarity, any connection, anything to tie them to each other, like clinging to threads on a fraying sweater.

Edward was reckless and wild, chasing visions of his future that would leave him bleeding, and that made him lucky. Hohenheim wished he could chase visions and bleed. That he would feel something anymore.

…But it wasn’t a fire that wrecked their home.  
  
He hadn’t realized just how much he missed them until he tasted that taste again. Had his eyes been damp these ten years?  
  
That night he drifted to Edward’s room like a lost spirit, walking up to where the boy lay sleeping.  
  
The last he knew of them they were tiny things bumbling at his feet. Full of potential energy, waiting to fill out the molds of their bodies and names, and he didn’t dare touch them, for fear of infecting them with the sound of the sea. 

Now that potential had become kinetic, and that name was more than just a word pronounced over him, it was something he was beginning to grow into. Time had begun to shape him. Though the more Hohenheim saw this, the more it seized him by the throat, asking him why he didn’t stay. 

_There’s nothing I could have done for them._

He wanted to talk to him. To ask him about the things he liked, the things he hated. He wanted to ask what those years were like, the good and the bad. To speak of those ten, and so much more. To watch the sunset and speak of tomorrow. 

He wanted to touch him, for his touch to be gentle. He wanted to hug him, and cry on his shoulder and say _I’m sorry_ and _I wished I’d stayed_ and _I‘d bring her back if he could._ He wanted to help him on his journey, growing into that name he gave him. To be his father, even if it was just at the end. 

But monsters have no right to touch children, especially not their own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Are there any songs that you feel work well for Ed and Hohenheim's relationship, especially in regards to the end of the series? I think I'm going to use more of Youth for the last chapter, because I felt I didn't use it in its entirety, and I think some parts of it work well as Ed @ Hohenheim, but I'm thinking I might need a second song to use as well and am currently at a bit of a loss for what to use. 
> 
> I'm not super happy with the real-time sections where he's chatting with Pinako, then at the end with Ed... I really felt I could add much more content and emotion to those, especially because the real-time sections were much longer in Ch1, but I ended up getting stuck with them, so I just left them short. (I think more than anything I just realized I didn't know how he'd react to learning all the terrible things that happened while he was away, since he's very reserved with his emotions). I'll let you know in the notes of the next/last chapter if I ended up figuring out how to flesh them out more though. And do let me know if you have any ideas for adding to them, (or if you like them as-is)!!
> 
> So, for the section where I actually name some folks from Xerxes, I was using actual names he used at the end of Ch67...I know there's kinda more power if these were people he met through being a philosopher's stone, not before, but I wanted to use actual names and those were the only concrete ones I had, and I didn't think I could successfully come up with Xerxes-sounding names on my own XD


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